


there is a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets in

by defcontwo



Category: Batwoman (Comic), DCU - Comicverse, Red Robin (Comics), Robin (Comics)
Genre: Coming Out, Community: queer_fest, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-03
Updated: 2013-06-03
Packaged: 2017-12-13 21:33:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,853
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/829116
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/defcontwo/pseuds/defcontwo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>But when it all comes down to it, Tim is self-aware enough to realize that maybe he's spent too much time learning every detail around him, absorbing information like a sponge, and not enough time thinking about himself.</p>
            </blockquote>





	there is a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets in

**Author's Note:**

> For the Queer Fest 2013 Prompt: DC Comics, anyone + Kate Kane, brooding on gargoyles and coming out to Batwoman.

Tim has always prided himself in how much he knows. He knows Gotham from its highest skyscraper right down to its shakiest foundational brick, he knows the tunnels beneath it and how they spread out in all directions like spider veins, every detail a mental blueprint that he commits to memory. 

He knows the people in his life, the Bats and the Birds and the Titans, knows their strengths and their weaknesses and what could turn them down the wrong path, what might alter their fate and turn an ally into an enemy. 

He knows what cereal brand Dick turns to when he's bummed out, the face that Alfred makes when he really has absolutely had enough of them all, and that Arrested Development makes Cass laugh uncontrollably for reasons that he will never understand. 

But when it all comes down to it, Tim is self-aware enough to realize that maybe he's spent too much time learning every detail around him, absorbing information like a sponge, and not enough time thinking about himself. 

He's just not sure how he could have missed _this_.

\+ 

It starts like this: 

It is a Wednesday afternoon and Tim has just gotten out of a four hour meeting with the board of Wayne Enterprises. His suit is rumpled from sitting in a chair for hours and he is wrung out and pissed off and severely under-caffeinated. 

Wrangling with the egomaniacs on the WE board is a job and a half on his best of days, and this is not his best of days. 

He is just about to open the door to his office before Tam appears out of nowhere and reaches out an arm to stop him. _So much for your superior reflexes, Red Robin_ , he thinks.

"Tim. Go take a walk and get yourself some coffee," she says. 

"Aren't I your boss?" 

Her grip on his arm tightens enough to make him wince. "If you don't leave this building and get some fresh air, I'm afraid you're gonna wind up snapping and killing everyone and I do not want to have to deal with the paperwork fall out from that." 

Tim huffs a laugh. "You're not wrong." 

Tam lets go of his arm and he turns to face her, and manages to give her a smile that she almost returns. She hasn't forgiven him, not yet, and he doesn't expect her to any time soon, but their working relationship is on the mend, at the very least. 

"Also, did I just manage to sneak up on you?" 

"No, definitely not." 

"Pretty sure I did, boss man. Caffeine. Get." 

Tim raises his hands in defeat. "Going, gone, Miss Fox." 

She shouts after him, "don't come back for at least an hour!" 

Which is how Tim ends up breathing in the dubiously fresh Gotham air and striding towards one of the posh market district chain coffee shops. Later, he will think that if he had just stayed in his office, none of this would have happened and he wouldn't be going through this - this _crisis_. 

Later, he will blame Tam for about half a second before conceding to how exceedingly irrational that is. 

Some things you can't avoid facing forever. 

\+ 

"Uh, Tim? Tim Drake?" 

It takes Tim a second to place the tall, blond haired boy standing in front of him on the sidewalk just outside the coffee shop but when he does, his stomach drops. _Bernard_. One of the many friends that he hasn't spoken to in well over a year, as he completely let his old life fall by the wayside amidst everything that had happened since the gang war and his father's death. 

"Or is it Tim Wayne now," Bernard says, a funny twist at the corner of his mouth, something that Tim recognizes as bitterness but doesn't know why. 

"Just Tim," he says, because it's the closest thing to the truth these days. 

"Long time, no see," Bernard says, and there is that bitterness again. 

"Yeah, I know. Look, uh. I was just about to grab some coffee, do you want to join me?" 

He realizes, suddenly, that he had missed Bernard. He had missed what the other boy had represented in his life, someone on the outside, someone who could make him laugh and not have it marred by ugliness or by thoughts of the always present darkness. 

Bernard looks surprised at the offer and Tim marks it down on the ever-growing list, something else to feel guilty over. 

"Yeah, I'd love some coffee," Bernard says, and they get in line together, chatting idly about their weeks and how miserable the weather has been lately. 

When it comes time to order their coffees, Tim pays for Bernard's without even thinking about it, figuring it's the least he could do for being such a shitty friend. Bernard makes a face at him and he remembers how Steph had always hated how he'd done that without asking. 

It feels jarring, though, to think of Steph and Bernard in the same category, so he shrugs it off as they move to an empty table in the corner. 

They sit in silence for a few minutes, both of them alternating between staring out the window and blowing on their too hot coffees. It occurs to Tim that he should be the one to make the start - he's the one who dropped contact, who fell off the face of the Earth. 

"What have you been up to?" 

Bernard sighs, placing the spoon he had been stirring his coffee with down with a loud clatter, and Tim wonders if this whole thing was a mistake, if he's too old to pretend that he can have civilian friends. 

"Look," Tim starts, clearing his throat, "I'm sorry that -- "

"Are you?" Bernard interrupts, gaze cold, before his shoulders sag. "No, I'm sorry. Uh. I just kind have my own. My own shit going on but I heard about your dad. I'm sorry, uh, I get it. Why you disappeared on all of us." 

"Thanks," Tim says, and he knows how it must sound, as if it was scraped raw out of him - even now, thinking about his father and that year, is just too much. 

"I'm a freshman at Gotham U," Bernard says, seemingly a non sequitur, until Tim remembers the question he had asked only moments earlier. "I'm thinking of majoring in marketing." 

"That's great," Tim says, and finds that he means it. "It suits you." 

Bernard gives a self-deprecating shrug. "Well, it's no billionaire high school drop-out but it's not too shabby." 

Tim snorts before he can stop himself. "Yeah, I've kind of gone about everything in the wrong order." 

"Hey, man, you got the 60K job without the hassle of higher education. Embrace the dream." 

"Honestly?" Tim says. "It's boring and the board drives me nuts. I just spent four hours in a meeting and I think I would trade it for a lecture hall in a heartbeat." 

"Whine, whine, don't make me throw my spoon at you, rich boy," Bernard says, but there is no malice to it, that familiar smirk on the other boy's face, and Tim finds himself relaxing. 

They get to talking about classes; Bernard's anecdotes about his intro to economics professor animated with impressive hand gestures make Tim shake with laughter. They move onto the merits of Star Trek versus Star Wars, and before he knows it, well over an hour has passed them by. 

"Oh fuck," he says, catching sight of his watch. "I've got to get back to work." 

"What, this wasn't end of the day slacking time?" 

"No, Tam ordered me out to take a break for an hour but I've still got a mountain of paperwork that I'd like to get started on before I call it a day." 

"Tam," Bernard says, his too-expressive face suddenly closed off. "Tam Fox, your fiancée?" 

Tim shakes his head. "No, that was. That was a whole thing, Vicki Vale, you know how she is. Tam and I are definitely not engaged. She thinks I'm kind of a jerk, actually." 

"You _are_ kind of a jerk," Bernard says. "Don't worry, it's part of your charm." 

"Well, thank God for that," Tim says. 

"Hey, I'll walk back with you to Wayne Enterprises, my subway stop is right over there." 

They walk back towards the looming WE building in easy silence, shoulders brushing together. 

They're almost at the large glass entrance doors to WE, standing just on the inside of one of the columns, when Bernard turns to him, uncertainty written into every tense line of his body. 

"How would you feel about. Would you maybe want to, you know. Dinner or something," Bernard says. 

"What?" 

"Fuck it," Bernard mutters and for the second time that day, Tim's much practiced awareness is completely taken by surprise when Bernard leans down and kisses him. 

For a few seconds, Tim does nothing. Then some unnamed instinct takes hold of him and he pushes forward and kisses back, and Bernard's lips part and - 

And it feels like a fuse has been lit within him. Tim feels warm all over, warm and suddenly very aware of every spot where their bodies are touching as Bernard presses him into the column behind them. It feels stupid and overdramatic and he wants to dismiss the thought as soon as he thinks it, but he has never felt this good kissing someone. He's always liked the implied closeness of it, the intimacy, but the actual act of it has never really done anything for him. He hears a strangled moan and is embarrassed to realize that it came from him. 

Tim pulls away, finally, more for lack of air than anything else. Bernard's eyes have gone dark and hungry, and it makes Tim's breath catch in his throat. 

"I've got to get to work," Tim says. 

"Yeah," Bernard says, voice hoarse. 

Tim ducks out from beneath the taller boy and walks steadily towards the front doors, and doesn't stop walking until he reaches his office, completely missing the WE security guard's raised eyebrows as he walks by. 

Tim collapses at his desk and runs a hand through his still too-long hair distractedly. 

"What the fuck." 

The paperwork goes untouched for the rest of the afternoon. 

\+ 

The thing is, he can't stop thinking about it. 

Tim goes through the rest of the day on auto-pilot. 

He thinks about how much taller than him Bernard was, how he'd had to lean up on tiptoes to get the angle right. He thinks about the rough scratch of stubble on his face and wonders how that same scratch would feel on his thighs, and it is there that he stops himself. Stops himself and shakes his head and suits up. 

Red Robin has responsibilities. Red Robin cannot afford to be distracted. 

Except he wrapped up his big mobster smuggling ring case last week and he's got a few loose threads hanging around but nothing that's serious enough to warrant his immediate attention. He leaps from rooftop to rooftop, patrolling the perimeter of his usual territory, before he has to give in and admit that it's a slow night. Tim settles in on top of one of the gargoyles on the old Gotham cathedral and waits. It's a good vantage point, he can see most of the city from here and he can get to most places quickly enough if there's an emergency. 

He ignores a voice inside of him that sounds a whole lot like Steph that tells him brooding on a gargoyle is very much a Bruce sort of thing to do. 

He's having a sexuality crisis. He can admit that much to himself. Brooding is allowed just this once, Tim figures. 

He hears her before he sees her. The sure footfalls and the swoop of the cape. The military discipline that sets her apart from the rest of them. 

"Batwoman," Tim says, inclining his head in her direction as she leans against the gargoyle next to him, looking out over the city. Her eye-catching red is unmistakable against the dark grey of the cathedral. 

"Slow night," she remarks. 

Tim's never really been sure what to think of Batwoman. That she's incredibly competent goes without saying - there have been many times when, observing her work, he's thought that she might just be better than Batman. Her training and her entire mental approach towards vigilantism is different from the rest of them, but that's not necessarily a bad thing - that's what Bruce doesn't like to hear. Gotham is a beast with many problems - there is no one good cure to heal the city's ills. It's taken a long time for Tim to understand that. 

And so there is Kate Kane, who wears the Bat on her chest but refuses to work with the Bat, instead choosing to go her own way. It's strange to him, if only because for Tim, the Bats are his family. They drive him nuts about 60% of the time, easily, but at the end of the day, he loves them. 

But Batwoman, he doesn't know at all. Only facts on a sheet of paper. She has her own life and her own demons. A father and a sister that weigh on her shoulders in different ways. A celebutante public persona not unlike Bruce's and a complicated on-again off-again relationship with Renee Montoya. 

Wait. 

"Can I ask you a personal question?" Tim says, refusing to look at her because he knows if he does, he'll lose his nerve. 

"Kid, I barely know you," Kate says, and he can practically _feel_ the eyebrow raise even if he can't see it. 

"Yeah, I know. It's just. You're kind of the only person I know I can ask about this." 

"Hmm," she says, and he can tell he's piqued her interest, if nothing else. "Alright, Red Robin. Shoot." 

"How did you know you were gay?" Tim asks, in a rush, like ripping off a band-aid. 

Kate whistles lowly. "Kid, that was not at all what I was expecting you to say." 

"Yeah, uh," Tim says, suddenly feeling incredibly small and incredibly stupid. "I'm sorry, that was too personal, we can just pretend that didn't happen." 

"My answer depends on why you're asking." 

"What?"

"Are you asking to add to Batman's no doubt incredibly detailed and anal-retentive database of information or are you asking because you, Tim Drake, want or need to know for personal reasons." 

Straight and to the point and he can't be surprised that she knows his name. 

He likes that she says Drake instead of Wayne. So few people do, these days. 

"Uh, the second one." 

She nods, thoughtfully, her bright red hair moving with her. "Give me a minute, kid." 

"Yeah, okay," Tim says, although as the seconds stretch on, he becomes antsy and wonders exactly what she means by a minute. 

Just as he's about to give up and go home to sulk, Kate starts talking. 

"I could tell you that I always knew but it'd be a lie. A lot of people do, you know. Always know. I can't give you one good answer because it's going to be different for everybody, kid. You already know that I wanted to be in the Army. I wanted it so badly that I spent a lot of time pretending that something wrong was something right. The thing is, you can lie to the world your whole life but after awhile, you gotta stop lying to yourself." 

She blows out a breath. "I'm not exactly role model life advice material. But you have to go with what feels right and good to you. If you've been trying to make something click your whole life and it just doesn't, then maybe there's a reason for that. That help?" 

Tim realizes that as she was talking, his hands had clenched at his sides. He imagines his knuckles must be white underneath the gauntlets. 

He hears what she's saying and he thinks of his own life, his own experiences, and he feels both slightly nauseous and a whole lot relieved. 

"Yeah, actually. That. That helped." 

She claps a hand to his shoulder. "You might as well go home and get some sleep, kid. Lord knows we could all use a little more of it.” 

Tim nods and turns to thank her, but in true Bat fashion, she’s already gone. 

He stays sitting there, perched on the gargoyle mulling over Kate’s words, until the sun comes up. 

\+ 

He waits a day and then a day turns into a week, and then it’s a full week and a half later, and he’s still thinking things through and sending his mind out in about half a million different directions. 

_Go with what feels good to you,_ Kate had said. 

Tim picks up his phone, thumbs over the raised numbers, and very nearly throws it across the room in frustration before stopping himself. 

He takes a deep breath and makes a decision. He dials Bernard’s number, already long since memorized. 

“Hey, it’s Tim. You said something about going to dinner?”

**Author's Note:**

> To Celeste and Vicky who looked over this for me and beta'd: you're the best, thank you so much.


End file.
